So long, 2012

December 31, 2012

I won’t be sorry to see you go. You’ve been a traumatic year, full of emotional and mental, personal and professional, turmoil. But you’ve brought me some wonderful stuff, too; to-wit, two brand new grandchildren, the second of which is three days old today.

My babies. Amazing Grandchildren, from left, 2, 1 and 3.

I have three grandbabies under the same roof right now, and I am here to tell you, it is a pretty marvelous feeling. Saying goodbye to one of them later tonight, as he and his mama, Child C, and daddy head back to their home. I’ll be staying here with the other two for the rest of the week.

Three grandbabies. THREE grandbabies! Three GRANDbabies! Dear Sweet Baby Jesus. Was I not just 21 about six months ago?

OK. I wasn’t. But the intervening years do have a tendancy to compress. And there’s certainly nothing I did in those intervening years that can match up to being the KayKay for these three. (An aside: To all my friends whom I thought were freaking idiots for being so foolish about their grandchildren: OK. I give up. I admit it. I’m as bad as, if not worse then, any two of you put together.)

There’s Amazing Grandchild 1, who’s well on her way to inheriting her mama’s toddler nickname of Taz, for the Tasmanian Devil, which she most closely resembles. She is smart and quick and ahead of her age in everything she does. She is her mother made over, and it makes me laugh and shake my head, because I remember how many times I beat it against the wall over her mother. Talk about paying for your raising.

Amazing Grandchild 2, on the other hand, is about as placid and laid-back as his mama was when she was five months old, when all you had to do was plunk her in the playpen and smile at her when you walked past. For him, it’s his bouncy horse, or his Exersaucer, from either of which he will favor you with the sweetest smile, complete with dimples, you ever saw in your life. We shall hope he does not become as much of a pill as she was 18 years later, or at least, if he his, he does as good a job as she has at coming back from it.

Amazing Grandchild 3 has not been around long enough for me to determine a personality for him. He seems like he’s going to be kind of low maintenance. He doesn’t come unglued when his sister decides the swing should really swing faster than it’s going. He patiently tolerates her checking his heart with her toy stethoscope. He has big hands with long fingers; he might be a wide receiver, if he reaches far enough back in his ancestry to acquire some height genes. We suspect he will be his sister’s fall guy in all sorts of criminal endeavors as they grow up.

There is no better Christmas, no better start to a New Year, than to spend it with the newest generation and sit and think about what they might do to change the world. You and y’mama ‘n ’em who have grandchildren know what I mean.

We’re blessed, aren’t we?

I’ll cook, this week, and write about it, I promise. One of my several non-resolutions for the New Year is to be more diligent on this blog, because it’s a piece of my life I enjoy.

A very Happy New Year to you all, and may your holiday season be as blessed as mine is.